1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a poultry processing apparatus and more particularly to an apparatus for automatically separating the radius and ulna portions of a poultry mid-wing from one another.
2. Description of the Related Art
To meet the demands of large scale poultry consumption throughout the world, numerous machines have been developed over the past several decades to enhance various aspects of poultry processing with particular attention directed toward improving the efficiency with which various cuts of poultry meat can be produced. While such machines have proven to be highly effective for producing various different cuts of poultry, some poultry parts contain small, tightly spaced bones that require complex manual manipulation to be separated into smaller cuts. For example, the mid-wing section of a poultry wing, which is located intermediate the larger, more muscular drumette section and the smaller, less muscular wingtip section, contains two generally parallel bones (i.e., the radius and the ulna bones) that are joined together at their ends by ligaments.
Although mid-wing sections of poultry wings are typically cooked and consumed as unitary pieces of food in the United States, it is common practice in some parts of the world to separate the radius bone and its surrounding muscle, tissue, and skin (herein referred to as the “radius portion”) from the ulna bone and its surrounding muscle, tissue, and skin (herein referred to as the “ulna portion”) to produce two separate, smaller cuts of meat. These cuts are generally easier to consume than a whole mid-wing in that they do not require a consumer to manually rend, or eat between, the radius and ulna bones. This method of preparing mid-wing sections of poultry has been gaining popularity in light of recent advances in agronomy that have allowed the farming of larger, more muscular poultry. Such poultry have large mid-wing sections that can be difficult to manually rend or otherwise consume as a single piece.
Traditionally, the radius and ulna portions of poultry mid-wing sections have been separated by manual cutting, which is time consuming, labor intensive, and somewhat dangerous. The inconsistent nature of manual cutting can also result in the accidental cutting or nicking of the radius and ulna bones themselves, which can create shards of bone that make the cuts undesirable. Therefore, the need exists for a means of separating the radius and ulna portions of poultry mid-wing sections safely, efficiently, and without forming shards.